Aditya Mahara ’12 andRaghabendra KC ’13

Making Lives Better

On September 9, 2009, X Club fraternity brothers Aditya Mahara ’12 and Raghabendra KC ’13 launched Making Lives Better (MLB), a service club designed to focus on education and health issues facing their native country of Nepal. In just two years, MLB has been the catalyst for two student-led service trips to Nepal, hundreds of service hours, and more than $50,000 in fundraising.

“More than two-thirds of our country lives below the poverty line,” said KC, who felt compelled to help the underserved in Nepal out of gratitude for the opportunity he has had for a Rollins education.

It didn’t take long for X Club to jump on the bandwagon. Not only has the fraternity made MLB its primary philanthropy, but half the attendees on the first service trip to Nepal were Clubbers. “I feel blessed to be involved in such an amazing venture with such amazing people,” KC said.

“Rollins inspires us to have no limits to what we can do,” said Mahara, a Cornell Scholar who, with the help of many supporters and volunteers, hosts the annual Rock for Poverty concert and fundraising dinners to support MLB. “So many people at Rollins have given us the resources and support to do what we wanted to do. The people that X Club attracts already seem to be service oriented, but being joined together makes it easier to make a meaningful contribution.”

Mahara and KC hope MLB will continue on after they leave Rollins. But regardless of the service club’s trajectory, the two students will leave Rollins with a fundamental lesson.

“Whenever you have a lot of people working toward the same goal, anything is possible,” Mahara said.